Starz is hoping to strike gold with Black Sails, a new period drama about a ruthless high seas captain (Toby Stephens) and his crew, that promises to be bolder, grittier, and a lot more realistic than other more recent takes on the genre.

“Before Pirates of the Caribbean there hadn’t been a definitive big pirate movie in a long time, and certainly never a definitive pirate show,” says showrunner Jon Steinberg. “It’s a great world. It’s a world where these people sort of broke out on their own from a system that didn’t want [them].”

Steinberg promises that the series—which boasts Transformers director Michael Bay as an exec producer—will not be rife with cliches.

“These people lived this life and this is what it was like,” says Steinberg, who adds that many of the characters on the show—which will be set in the Bahamas in 1715—will be rooted in history.

“There’s a reason people are still talking about this world,” says Steinberg. “It had adventure, ships, battles and all the intrigue that has come to be apart of that world. We’re hoping to capture that.”

The series doesn’t premiere until 2014, but fans can attend a screening to see the first episode at Comic-Con.